A massive and growing gap between rich and poor. A middle class squeeze. Technological shifts driving changes in how people live their lives everyday. Big corporations getting bigger, and the influence – and confluence – of money and politics growing stronger.

At the same time, a progressive US president takes office, willing to take on big business and big money – promising a new vision that will rewrite the way the government and the people interact.

If this sounds familiar, then wait, because you haven’t heard the whole story. For this story, the time was the beginning of the 20th Century. The President was Teddy Roosevelt. And the Industrial Revolution – with its monopolies and unsafe working conditions and vast collections of wealth – met a President willing to take it on.

How did he do it? How did he try to extend his success with a hand-picked successor William Howard Taft? And what, if any lessons, can we take today from events that occurred then?